TWELVE TWELVE We returned to the base camp later that week. Bob had a calendar above his cot. In seventy-six days we would be eligible for rotation, after being in-country for one full year. That night in the makeshift battalion officers club, I sat with Dunn, Duckett, and Bradley at a rear table. Bradley, a replacement, would be around for several more months. Duckett’s convalescence time counted toward his year, and he would rotate home with Bob and me.
We were talking about what we would do when we got back to the States when Dunn mentioned that Colonel Haldane was returning to the States through Europe.
Bradley said we all could. Any active-duty person could book passage on a scheduled round-the-world U.S. Air Force charter called the Embassy Flight. It was used primarily by Defense Department attachés, diplomatic personnel, and couriers, but seats were available for military personnel with legitimate reasons for travel, like us. He suggested that the three of us try to go home on Air Force One, like Haldane.
In our typical, grateful fashion, we told him he was full of shit: Haldane’s a colonel. We’re second lieutenants. There’s a little difference there.
“Fine,” he said, “don’t believe me. But the next time you’re in Saigon, go to the Travel Section at the U.S. Embassy, and ask about seats on Air Force One.”
Dunn, intent on getting back to Linda in California on the fastest plane going, had no interest in traveling through Europe. But Duckett and I liked the idea, we just didn’t think it was available.
Later that week, Haldane authorized in-country R&R and Duckett and I took off for Saigon.
We stopped off at division headquarters on the way down and I sought out a friend of Crash’s at the Administration Section, and we asked him about our exact departure-from-Vietnam date and orders.
“Ah,” he said, “the magic ticket. DEROS orders. The Date of Estimated Return from OverSeas orders. Very, very valuable. The keys to heaven. You don’t leave Nam without it. I have yours here. Burke told me you were on the way and to look after you, so I have taken the liberty of running off a couple of extra copies for both of you.”
I was authorized to leave 13 September 1966. Joe was authorized to leave on the fourteenth. Signed, stamped, mimeographed, in duplicate, everything. Legal. Some people didn’t get their orders until the day they left, and we had ours two months early. Crash Burke, I thought, you and your friend are very good people.
On the afternoon of 2 July, we were standing in front of the Marine guard post by the main entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Throngs of people were coming and going. We felt out of place. We looked out of place. Our uniforms, though clean, were not starched and tailored like others that we saw, and we were leaner than most military personnel on the streets of Saigon. I had a funny steel-pot tan—my forehead white and my cheeks tanned. And we must have looked unsure of ourselves.
The Marine said that the Travel Section was in a Quonset hut to the side of the embassy building. Walking along tentatively, we stepped out of the way when busy embassy people hurried by us. A Vietnamese receptionist in the front of the Quonset hut did not act surprised when we asked about signing up for the Air Force One flight on 14 September. She gave us some forms to fill out and a mimeographed sheet explaining what was required—DEROS orders, passport, military ID, uniform while traveling. Although I was authorized to leave 13 September, we decided that I would stay over in Saigon until the fourteenth so we could leave together. We finished filling out the forms and were directed to an Air Force sergeant in a rear room. He said everything looked in order. We nodded.
“What’s this going to cost?” I asked.
“Nothing,” the sergeant said.
“That’s it, then?” I said, still not sure that this was for real.
The sergeant looked at me hard, curious about my hesitation. “Let me see your DEROS orders again,” he said.
He examined the one I offered for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Everything’s all right. You two are the first signing up for the fourteenth, and unless something extraordinary happens and you get bumped a day, that is when you’ll be on your way to Europe.”
We left the embassy in a more confident manner.
We went to Tu Do Street in downtown Saigon and had some photos taken for our passport applications. That night we practiced our international barroom skills. We liked the feel of being out together. Duckett was six-feet-four and I was six-feet-two. Maybe it was the look in our eyes from our experiences in the field, maybe it was our size and our smiles, but people treated us with deference. When we walked into bars, people noticed us. And we had Europe right down the road. Hold on continent, here we come.
In the coffee shop of our hotel the next morning we heard that Tan Son Nhut airfield had been bombed during the night. Rockets had landed in the departure area and killed several 1st Cav soldiers who were due to leave country that day. After surviving a year of combat, they were killed in their sleep in the departure area in Saigon, the night before they left country.
“Fortunes of war,” Duckett said.
“Yeah, and I ain’t staying one more night here than I have to, my friend. I’m leaving on the thirteenth. I’ll meet you in Bangkok or Europe or Philly, but I ain’t staying here one extra night.”
We went back to the Air Force sergeant and I made the change without a problem. Duckett and I would meet in Bangkok, Thailand, 14 September; depart on Air Force One on the fifteenth for New Delhi, India, where we would overnight; and then go on to Afghanistan, Athens, and Madrid. We were on our own there to rent a car for a drive up to Germany, where we could get a military hop to the east coast of the U.S.A.
On our return from Saigon we found the battalion going through familiar preparations for another field operation. Two days later, Haldane asked the entire battalion staff to division headquarters for a briefing. Representatives from every battalion in the three brigades were on hand.
Dunn and I stood at the rear of the room before the briefing and greeted other staff officers whom we had met previously. Colonel Haldane was talking with the cavalry commander, Col. Leonard L. Lewane. When Haldane went to the front of the room, Dunn and I asked Lewane about Slippery Clunker Six. The colonel said that call signs had been changed, but the man whom we knew as Clunker Six had volunteered to lead this new operation.
After Col. Sidney B. Berry Jr., the 1st Brigade commander, took the stage, an officer called us to attention as General DePuy walked in through a side entrance and up the stairs to the stage. Speaking in a surprisingly strong voice, his comments went something like this: “In this war, we have to kill more of the enemy than they kill of us in order to win. It’s that simple. It is a war of attrition. They try to get us; we try to get them. They have advantages we don’t have; we have things they don’t have. The monsoon weather has been on their side for the last three months, and they have operated in some of our area with impunity. We haven’t been able to use our Air Force, our cavalry gets stuck, rivers are swollen, men get foot rot. But the rains are almost over, replacements are in, we know where the enemy is, we know his weaknesses, and we are going on the offense. We are going to use our advantages, and we are going to kill a lot of the enemy. And we are going to win. I have worked on this next operation with Colonel Berry, and it is good. We have borrowed from the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines, and all the U.S. Army units around us, and we have all we need.” He paused. “Now it’s up to you. Be tough. Be aggressive. Do your job. This is the 1st Infantry Division. We have a reputation to live up to.” He paused again. “I’ll turn the briefing over to Colonel Berry. I want all battalion commanders to remain after the briefing and join me for lunch.”
General DePuy left the stage. Colonel Berry pulled aside a curtain behind him to show a map blowup of the area along the Cambodian border north of Parrot’s Beak. The following is a paraphrase of what the colonel told us that day:
“Because we are not allowed to attack the Vietnamese inside Laos and Cambodia, they have developed, as you know, a highway that originates in North Vietnam and comes all the way down, inside first Laos and then Cambodia, to this area, north of the Parrot’s Beak, here [pointing to map] northwest of Saigon. At the terminus is their forward field headquarters, called COSVN.
“The VC unit that operates between COSVN and Saigon is the 272d Regiment of the 9th Division. Because of our operations in January near Cu Chi, 272d Regiment forces do not stay inside South Vietnam for very long now. They move across the border, attack a target, and move back to their base sanctuaries in Cambodia.
“During the recent monsoon rains, elements of the 272d Regiment came into South Vietnam to attack American and ARVN positions in the following locations.” He used his pointer to indicate a dozen points on the map.
“I now call your attention to this area.” Berry replaced the first map with a map showing the South Vietnam/Cambodia border to the left and Highway 13 dissecting the center. On Highway 13, at the top of the map, was the town of Loc Ninh; farther down was the town of An Loc. Near An Loc was a spur road running west toward the South Vietnam/Cambodia border and ending at the Minh Thanh rubber plantation. At the bottom of the map was the Ho Bo woods and the town of Cu Chi. “During the rains, the Viet Cong attacked Loc Ninh three or four days a week. It was difficult to give the Special Forces unit there fire support, and it was difficult to airlift in supplies. We dropped ammunition and food when we could, but the enemy located rockets in close and our resupply planes had to fly high when they dropped. Fifty percent of our supplies landed outside of the wire and were recovered by the enemy.
“These two engagements,” he pointed to two marks along the road, “were the result of Quarterhorse efforts to open the road into Loc Ninh. On 8 June, Troop A of the 1st/4th Cavalry was ambushed by elements of the 272d here south of An Loc, and, on 30 June, Troop C with the 1st of the 2d Infantry conducted a reconnaissance in force and engaged elements of the 271st Regiment here south of Loc Ninh. The Quarterhorse, as some of you know who participated, took heavy casualties but killed close to four hundred VC.
“The VC 272d Regiment has been hurt but not destroyed, and we think it will engage our units operating in this area again, if it has a chance. We want to give them that chance. We have told local Army of South Vietnam forces—for the sake of the known VC agents in their ranks—that, on 9 July, we are going to send a convoy composed of an engineer bulldozer and several supply trucks from An Loc to Minh Thanh. We expect word to reach the VC 272d Regiment and we expect they will ambush this convoy for its supplies. They think it will be lightly guarded, and it will be traveling down a road only ten miles from their sanctuaries in Cambodia.
“What we will send down the Minh Thanh road on 9 July will be Task Force Dragoon, commanded by Colonel Lewane. It will be composed of Troops B, C, and D of the 1st/4th Cav, augmented with Company B, 1st/2nd Infantry Battalion. Plus, on standby, we are going to have three heliborne battalions of infantry and all available artillery and Air Force/Marine fast movers waiting to spring a counterambush—a vertical counterambush.
“This is Operation El Paso II. We’re going to have a deception move on D day minus 1 to put the standby infantry and the artillery in position at LZs near the road. ARVN units will be told this deployment is for a sweep south toward Cu Chi, a goodly distance away from Minh Thanh. Artillery will be deployed at the same time to colocate with the infantry in the staging areas.
“At 0530 on D day, the three battalions with artillery will move from their deception ops staging areas to launch positions. These launch positions, which are within artillery range, are located here, here, and here.” He pointed to three points on the map in the vicinity of the Minh Thanh road.
“At 0700 D day, Task Force Dragoon will depart An Loc. There will be radio silence except necessary communications between Colonel Lewane in the command and control [C&C] helicopter and the lead elements of the task force. We have established checkpoints on the road; please mark them on your maps. The first, at the intersection of the spur road and Route 13, is Checkpoint John. Approximately four miles farther is Checkpoint Gordon. Four miles farther is Hank, then Dick, and finally Tom, four miles from the Minh Thanh plantation.
“If—when—the VC 272d Regiment takes the bait, the artillery will begin immediate fire. They will be tracking the movement of the convoy—turning their tubes as they get location reports—and when the VC bite, they will lay down a blanket of fire on the south side of the road. The fast movers will be on station. They will drop napalm and high-explosive ordnance on the north side of the road. Artillery has the south. Task Force Dragoon has the inside. The cavalry will sustain a high volume of fire during the counterambush; they will not split up; they will use flamethrowers—their Zippos—as offensive weapons. We will have the first flight of infantry counterambush forces on the ground within ten minutes to relieve pressure on Task Force Dragoon and to mop up along the sides of the road. We will put one battalion of infantry in blocking positions near the Cambodian border.
“If the VC 272d takes the bait, we will destroy them.”
In outlining the responsibilities of the various units, Colonel Berry said that the 1st/28th Infantry Battalion would be the first to respond if the ambush was sprung at checkpoint Dick or Tom, near the Minh Thanh rubber plantation.
There was a flurry of movement by groups of officers as each unit’s responsibilities were announced. Many had questions.
“Before I take your questions,” Berry said, “the deputy division commander has something to say. Sir,” he nodded to a one-star general at the side of the stage.
Gen. James F. Hollingsworth rose and picked up a pointer from the map board.
“We are going to kill gooks in this operation,” he promised us. “We’re going to take some casualties. Goddammit, it’s a war. But I don’t want the war to stop when we take casualties. We don’t have time.” He said each word in the last sentence slowly, loudly. “We gotta keep going, like a good fighter, we keep going. These son’bitches are going to be surprised all to hell. We don’t get ’em like that often. We will be in control, and goddammit I want to think we’re pushing a mean pointed stick out there against those son’bitches. Get your men ready, get ’em mean. There are times to go slowly, and there are times to lock and load—kick ass. This is that time, won’t be a long period. Gotta get in there fast and move fast. Kill fast. The ambush could take place less than ten miles from a line we cannot cross. That doesn’t give us much time to muck around. Don’t stop because one of your men gets hurt. Press on. Leave a medic behind or a guard and push on. Those son’bitches aren’t going to stay around long.”
Hollingsworth stopped and walked to the front of the stage. “You’re good soldiers, in the finest tradition of the 1st Infantry Division. Good luck. Remember: Kill ’em, kill ’em fast.” He paused. “Kill ’em,” he added for good measure, then turned and left the stage.
“Damned fine plan, Bobby,” I said to Dunn as we left the briefing and started back to the battalion. “Damned fine.”
“You know,” he answered, “the cav commander said ol’ Slippery Clunker Six’s leading this thing. I bet this isn’t the last month of Slippery Clunker Six’s tour here. He wouldn’t be doing something like this if it were.”
I said, “Maybe this is his last month here—on this earth. He must feel invincible. He volunteered, too, you heard that. Volunteered? Can’t imagine that from someone who appeared so—so balanced. So perceptive. Seemed like such a smart fellow. Why you reckon he volunteered, Bob?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fumes inside those tanks. I wish him luck. He’s the best we got, and as a poet he’s going to be stage center here pretty soon.”
Dunn and I were busy fourteen hours a day as Haldane and Panton directed our battalion’s coordination with artillery, Air Force, the division G-3, the other battalions, and the helicopter units. Every new unit we had to liaise with was a problem multiplier.
I sought out Duckett and told him to keep his head down. “Europe is right out there, right where I can see it, at the tip of our fingers, Joe. Don’t get yourself blown up. This is important. Stay low, you big black lug. You hear me, you half-deaf son’bitch?” I went by his platoon sergeant and told him to protect Duckett with his life.
On D day minus two, we moved by C-130 to Quan Loi and were deployed to a rubber plantation off the runway where we would bivouac for the night. As we were walking along the road to the plantation, a cavalry troop came up behind us and, with their tracks clanking and clamoring, slowly passed. Slippery Clunker Six was in the lead tank. He touched his hand to his tanker’s helmet as if to tip it when he passed Haldane and the command group. He recognized Dunn and me and gave a “V” sign with his right hand. He did look invincible—bigger than life.
Behind him were several ACAVs filled with cavalry troops. Our two groups exchanged taunts, probably the same barbs traded between the cavalry and foot soldiers since wars began.
I had the feeling that after a year in Vietnam, we were all coming together somewhere out there, going full speed: us, the cavalry, the artillery, the Air Force, the enemy.
We carried mountains of material in the command group and had extra radiomen assigned. Crash, loaded with gear, looked like a mountain guide from Kathmandu.
The following day, D day minus one, we were to be heli-lifted to the staging area to the south as part of the diversion operation. Except for those we put out on guards, the men stayed in their groupings for the heli-lift to the launch site at first light.
I woke up about 0430 the next morning. It was 9 July 1966. Crash was already up. He had made coffee and was looking over the colonel’s map, which he carried. Talking to the colonel as he gave him a cup of coffee, he said he thought the North Vietnamese would attack in our area. It was the closest point to the Cambodian border, and there were river valleys between the road and the border for the VC to use. Also, according to intelligence, elements of the VC 272d Regiment were reported near Minh Thanh as recently as the previous day. “It’s going to be our nickel, Colonel,” Crash said.
The transport helicopters and their gunships came in low over the trees at first light and were on the ground at the staging area by 0530. The men were onboard within minutes, and the helicopters lifted off for the forward launch site, ten minutes’ flying time from Checkpoint Tom.
Dunn went in the first chopper. I went in the last, after ensuring that no one had been left behind.
When I arrived at the forward launch site about 0630, Panton had already set up the battalion CP near a tree on a berm at the side of the field. The field itself was a half-mile square. In one corner, two artillery batteries, a 105mm and a 155mm, had arrived, and the artillerymen were running around in organized chaos as they uncrated ammunition and prepared the guns for action. The thirty-one helicopters that had moved our battalion were in two files down the center of the field. The gunships, looking like a group of thugs, were off to the rear. All of the aircraft were in the process of shutting down. Most of the men from the battalion had disembarked and were lying around. Some of the pilots were walking around and talking to each other, while others remained sitting in their seats. The doors to the choppers were open.
Panton had laid out a map on the ground under the tree. A round rock, representing the convoy, lay on top of An Loc. Clearly marked along the road to Minh Thanh were the checkpoints: John, Gordon, Hank, Dick, and Tom. If Crash was right, the attack would come near Checkpoint Tom. We had six radios set up around the map on the ground. Haldane stayed close to the division command net radio, but we were most interested in the radio monitoring the cavalry’s frequency.
D hour of 0700 came and went. Finally, at 0710, Slippery Clunker Six broke static on the cav frequency and reported that the convoy was on its way—he was moving out. We recognized Slippery Clunker Six’s voice, which had the casual, reassuring tone of a friendly airline pilot.
Colonel Lewane in the C&C confirmed. We knew from the briefing that Slippery Clunker Six would be leading the task force in his tank, followed by another tank, then two ACAVs filled with troops, and then another tank. The remaining elements of Troop C would be dispersed within the convoy. Troop B would bring up the rear behind a wrecker. Colonel Lewane soon reported that the entire convoy was on the road and moving.
Shortly before Checkpoint Gordon, Slippery Clunker Six said he would begin to recon by fire as he went along. As he passed Gordon, he called out his position. We could hear the booming of a .50-caliber machine gun in the background.
Panton moved his rock. We drank coffee and smoked—waiting and listening. Birds sang in the distance. Flies buzzed around. Time dragged. I reread letters from my parents and from some children at a Nebraska public school.
Between Checkpoint Gordon and Hank was the first of the three areas from which Colonel Berry thought the Vietnamese might attack. Lewane reported that he saw people moving across the road around the bend from the lead tank. On the cavalry net we heard Slippery Clunker Six alert his troops and tell them to tighten their chin straps. Their Great Adventure might be coming up soon. He said he was going to recon ahead and told the ACAV behind him to follow. Everyone else was to hold back. Over the radio, we could still hear his .50-caliber machine gun firing. Then there was silence on the radios. All U.S. forces involved in the operation stood by and waited.
Finally the Quarterhorse colonel came back on and said that the people he had seen must have been hunters or farmers. He found no one in the area. The convoy moved on.
On the other side of Checkpoint Hank the road left the sparse prairie grass and entered a dense jungle forest. The convoy would travel under the canopy of the forest for more than two miles. It was the most dangerous area of the operation. If the convoy were attacked here, the closest place where reinforcements could land would be on either side of the forest.
Slippery Clunker Six said, on the cavalry net, that he was going into the Enchanted Forest and God be with anyone who tried to stop him before he came out. Lewane told him to be careful, he’d see him on the other side.
Ten minutes into the forest, Slippery Clunker Six reported, “There are some logs across the road three hundred meters to my front. Hold the convoy.”
Panton asked Colonel Haldane if we should alert the men and possibly start the helicopters. The colonel said no, not yet.
On the Quarterhorse radio frequency the cavalry platoon leader—several vehicles back from Slippery Clunker Six—said, “This could be a VC tax point. If it’s an ambush it’s not very subtle. I’m going to send a tank down with a blade on the front to act as a battering ram.” He told Slippery Clunker Six to move ahead and clear the road. He told one of the ACAVs to follow shooting.
We waited, looking around at each other.
Slippery Clunker Six came back on the radio and said, “We’re moving out again, the road’s clear. No Charlie, but we sure scared the hell out of some trees.”
The sun was climbing in the morning sky and it began to get hot. Down by the artillery we could hear one of the NCOs in the fire direction center of the 155 battery yell an alert to the gunner. Apparently the convoy was coming into range of its guns. We saw a man climb over one of the traces to the gun and put his eye into a sight.
Colonel Lewane said that the fast movers orbiting on standby were running out of fuel and would be replaced by new jets.
Panton pointed out that the convoy had not received any sniper fire, which proved to him that something was planned. The VC operated all along the road. Unless they were told to keep down because a big attack was planned, they would have been sniping.
The convoy approached Checkpoint Dick and the 105 battery in our area went on alert. The gunners turned the tube slowly as their fire direction center plotted the movement of the convoy.
Haldane sent Dunn and me to tell all the company commanders to have their men take a piss and get ready. We walked down the line and spoke to each commander. Woolley was, as usual, full of good cheer. Our relationship had not changed since I had moved to battalion. He was a fine officer and a gentleman, and I did not try to become familiar. I would have followed him to hell.
Dunn started back to the battalion group and I told him I’d be along soon. I walked over to my old platoon. Bratcher was sitting in a helicopter with his feet dangling over the side. Propped up on his radio, Spencer was lying on the ground close by. Lieutenant Trost had contracted dengue fever during the previous operation and was back at the division aid station. Bratcher was acting platoon leader.
Beck came out of the crowd of men and stood beside me. I sat down next to Bratcher, who offered me a cigarette. Spencer stood up, and Manuel, Lyons, and King walked up to join Beck in a semicircle around us. Bratcher asked if I knew anything they didn’t about this upcoming operation. “Nope,” I said, “you know about as much as I do. But I know this—we got less than a couple of months to go in-country. You don’t have to be a hero to catch that plane out, just alive.”
“Yeah,” Bratcher said, “we’ll be okay.”
Returning to the battalion CP, I noticed on the map that Panton’s rock was near Checkpoint Tom. I looked back at the helicopters and saw that most of the pilots were in their seats. The gunships started up with their individual swooshes and whines.
Slippery Clunker Six came on the air and said that across the field ahead was Tom, the intersection of the road, and a tree line. He was moving out front as point.
Trees came down close to the road for about a half mile and then the road went through a marshy area and up a short incline. The road had been built up in the swampy area and had steep banks. Crash had a stick in his hand and tapped the map just beyond Tom.
Slippery Clunker Six said that he was approaching Tom and was going to move ahead through the woods at a good pace.
After telling Panton to motion for the helicopters to crank, Haldane stood on the berm and raised his hand—his signal to the company commanders to load.
I picked up the satchel I was to carry for the colonel, then helped Crash put on his radio. The entire command group packed up and started moving toward two helicopters near the front of the column. Haldane had insisted that he get on the ground as soon as possible to coordinate the counterambush. If an attack occurred now, we would be the first in. We would be going in on both sides of the incline near the marsh.
Crash had the division radio. The RTO behind him had a radio on the Quarterhorse frequency, and as we walked to the helicopter we heard the Quarterhorse commander in the C&C saying that he spotted some people ahead of the convoy.
Slippery Clunker Six, on his net, reported the same thing and said he was taking the people under fire.
Then, suddenly from Capt. Steve Slottery, commander of Troop C in Task Force Dragoon, “We’re under attack! All around us! My lead tank’s hit. They’re all over us.…” In the background we heard catastrophic, violent firing and explosions.
On the Air Force spotter aircraft frequency, a calmer, businesslike pilot’s voice said, “Bingo, Bingo, Lead 42 come down on my smoke.”
The artillery at the end of the field began firing before we reached our helicopter. As I jumped on, it began to lift off. The gunships were already in the air and heading toward the convoy.
The artillery behind us began to fire at a steady, deafening rate, the concussions pounding off our chests one after another. All around us helicopters were gaining altitude and heading toward the road. I was sitting beside the Air Force radio and tried to make out the indistinct messages between the spotter aircraft and the jets. From the radio to my left I could hear the sounds of battle on the Quarterhorse frequency above the noises of the helicopters, and the frantic messages among the cavalry leaders as they fought for their lives in the middle of the ambush.
In the distance ahead of us, a jet streaked down from the heavens and, after it pulled up, a giant ball of fire flashed. Nearby, within seconds, another ball of fire appeared from an unseen jet.
I caught myself whistling, looking ahead, tense. Faintly, from the distance, we began to hear explosions on the ground. The helicopters moved off the treetops and gained altitude so they could get a diving run down into the LZ. The higher they lifted, the more fires we saw in front of us. Off to the southeast I could barely make out the end of the convoy still out in the field. Some vehicles were ablaze.
The road through the woods was clearly marked by the Air Force and artillery fire. Some gunships already on the scene came into sharp contrast as they streaked past burning napalm.
Ahead, I saw the incline and the marshy area as the lead chopper landed in the clearing by the marsh. The lead vehicles of Task Force Dragoon were on the road to our left. Some were on fire. In the distance I could see flames from the snout of a Zippo spray the roadside with a hellish flame. In the jungle, napalm had burned long black splotches along the north side of the road. Some trees stood naked.
Amid more explosions and more fireballs we began to hear the clatter and heavy thumping of machine guns. Tracers from some of the tanks were still streaking into the woods.
Men from the lead choppers raced for the wood line. Several fell. People were moving about hurriedly on the road. It was hard to tell whose side they were on. For a fleeting second it appeared that most of them were Vietnamese running across the road from the south. We were landing in the middle of the battlefield.
On the ground seconds later, I lay down until the helicopter lifted off, then moved under its skids to join the command group running through the waist-high grass for the trees. I could see the turret to the lead tank off to the side, near the marsh. It was at a crazy angle. The tracks on the tank were blown askew.
Panton had a simple map of the area between Checkpoints Tom and Dick in his hand and was plotting the locations of the companies with a grease pencil. I walked past him and joined Dunn, who was staring into the woods.
The area smelled like spent gunpowder and burnt wet weeds. Bushes were burning everywhere. Suddenly to our right, a Vietnamese got up and started running through the woods. By the time Bob and I got our rifles up, other men in the battalion had cut him down. He was dressed in olive-green fatigues but did not appear to have a weapon.
Haldane came up behind us and told us to move out. Most of the battalion was on the ground. I took the point for the command group as we moved cautiously by the burned-out area on the tree line into dark jungle. We could see sunlight ahead where napalm had burned through the foliage, and I headed in that direction.
Firing continued all around us. Occasionally a round zinged overhead. Slow-moving, heavily armed, prop-driven Skyraider aircraft came on station, and Haldane asked the company commanders to have each platoon throw smoke to identify their forward positions. He told them to hold up until we got a fix from the forward air controller (FAC).
Company C was beside the road, Company B was beside them to our left, and Company A was to our right. The lead elements of Company B suddenly began firing. Grenades went off. The commander came on the radio and said they had run into Vietnamese.
Some walking wounded from Company A had approached our group and were being treated by the head corpsman when the FAC came on the air and said that he had our smoke. We were even with the cav unit at the head of the convoy, more or less on line. He told us to hold up for five minutes while the Skyraiders worked the area in front of us. General DePuy came on and said four minutes—we had to move on.
The ponderous Skyraiders came from behind us. Suddenly their firing drowned out everything else around us. Then, off in the distance, we heard other explosions and the ground shook.
The Skyraiders’ fire cut down whole trees. One wave of two planes was followed by another wave and another.
General DePuy was on the radio yelling for us to move out, mop up.
Haldane passed the order.
Another bomb went off somewhere in the distance and the ground shook again.
Company B sent a gravely wounded man on a poncho stretcher to our area. Haldane told the two soldiers carrying the stretcher to stay with us, take point for the command group, and move out. We left the wounded man behind with the head medic. Haldane told the corpsman to make it to the road with his wounded when he got him patched up.
Company C called in to report they were stepping over Vietnamese dead. Did Haldane want a body count? Haldane said he wanted the company to move ahead.
About this time the two soldiers leading our group stopped in their tracks. Haldane asked loudly, over the din of noise around us, what the delay was about. I told him I’d check and I moved up by the men. They were looking down at a ravine that went straight across our front. It looked like a dried-up river. Beside us, Alpha Company came on the radio to report the ravine.
Down in the bottom was a trail—a “superhighway” through the forest that the ambushers were certainly planning to use as an escape route away from the road. I sent the two men across. As they reached the bottom, an automatic weapon opened up from the left and the lead man recoiled from a hit, but he gathered himself, dived to the side, and hid behind a log.
Company B soldiers were behind the Vietnamese gun. They threw grenades into the position and two Vietnamese soldiers were blown partially out. The other Bravo Company soldier in the ravine got across and up the other side. The command group followed. The remaining medic helped the first man up and treated his wound. Down the ravine, some of our soldiers were investigating the Vietnamese blown out of the machine gun position and yelled up to us that one of them was still alive. Haldane told them to take him to the road.
Charlie Company continued to report that it was coming across a lot of bodies and taking some prisoners. Haldane told them also to move the POWs to the road.
Firing picked up as we approached the heart of the ambush, where the bulk of the Vietnamese had been hiding as they waited to be used as porters to carry the supplies back to Cambodia. Rounds continued to zing over our heads.
Alpha Company reported that it was wading through the carnage left by one of the Skyraiders that had hit a Vietnamese group broadside with its .50-caliber machine guns. I heard Duckett say that it was a Philadelphia mess. Spencer was on the air and said that Bratcher and my old platoon were coming across individuals and pairs of VC trying to make their way north away from the ambush.
The small-arms fire subsided and two more men from Company B came our way with a soldier on a stretcher. Their charge—only a boy, a small, youngish eighteen—looked up at me and said he didn’t want to die.
“Hell, man, I can’t see where you’re wounded,” I said.
He pulled up his fatigue jacket, and I could see a small bullet hole near his navel. There wasn’t much blood outside, but it was clear that he had extensive internal bleeding. His skin was bloated around the bullet wound.
Haldane walked up. The boy continued to say over and over again that he didn’t want to die. He was going into shock.
“Gut shot,” I said to Haldane. “He’ll die unless we get him to a medic soon.”
“We don’t have any,” Haldane said.
I suggested that we could send the litter detail to the road, but Haldane said the men with the stretcher were needed where they were. He told me to get the man to the road, find a radio, and tell him what was happening out there.
“Rog,” I said.
Haldane directed the two Bravo Company men to return to their unit and told Dunn to move out on point. I stood beside the boy on the stretcher and watched the battalion group follow Dunn.
Firing was picking up, some of it coming from our rear.
At the end of the battalion group, an Air Force forward observer came along with his radio operator and another soldier who had fallen in with us. I reached out and grabbed the soldier as he walked by and called out to the Air Force officer.
“Hey, I’ve got a man here that has to get to the road. I got me a man here to take one end of the stretcher. Can I borrow your radio operator for the other end?”
The Air Force officer, who had not been in Vietnam very long, looked confused. “What about the radio?” he asked.
“You carry it,” I said flatly.
“Okay,” he said.
I helped the radio operator take off the PRC-25 and put it on the back of the officer. The battalion group had moved ahead, and, still adjusting the radio, the officer quickly followed.
Too soon, we were alone. Motioning the soldier to the front of the stretcher and the radio operator to the rear, I began moving toward the road with my M-16 at port arms.
The boy on the stretcher continued to cry out. After a half-dozen steps I went back to the stretcher, bent down on one knee, grabbed the boy by the chin, and said, “Shut the fuck up. Moaning don’t help. It gets on my nerves. And it gives our position away. We’re all alone, fellow. Shut up, and I’ll get you out of here.” I twisted his chin back and forth and smiled.
We went on, but had to stop every few feet to listen. We were standing still at one point when I saw someone dart between some bushes to my right front. I extended a hand back and motioned for the litter detail to drop to the ground. Putting the gun to my shoulder, I aimed at the bushes. A Vietnamese with an AK-47 in his hand came from behind a tree. He was looking away from me and heading toward the ravine. As he started to break into a trot, I had a clear shot and fired a short burst of rounds. The Vietnamese fell backward and disappeared into the undergrowth.
I suspected that there would be other Vietnamese ahead, so I turned and started toward the ravine. The two men with the stretcher followed me.
Nearing the ravine, I saw where the battalion CP group had climbed up the side. I knew that off to my right would be the machine gun position destroyed by Company B. Small-arms fire zipped over our heads from below.
“Ah, shit,” I said as I dived for the ground. Vietnamese were in the ravine, but they did not attack. They had probably fired and run, I thought as I lay there. After a few minutes I got up in a crouch, came back around the stretcher, and started off again straight toward the road.
Near where I had shot the Vietnamese, I saw movement in the bushes ahead. Whoever was there was moving awkwardly. Far to my front, a Vietnamese moved out into a small clearing. He was carrying another man on his back. Although I could barely make out the pair, I knew that both men were Vietnamese and the shirt of the one being carried was bloody. As they went out of sight, I could see his head roll around as if he were dead or unconscious.
More Vietnamese appeared to the right. Three or four, I couldn’t tell. Jesus, I thought as I dropped to the ground again, I’m making my way across the migration route of the whole North Vietnamese nation.
Do I stand up and shoot or let them pass?
The boy behind me moaned. I began to sweat. I listened. There was firing in the distance. I strained to hear what was happening in front of me. Two or three minutes went by. The boy moaned again.
I got to my knees. There was no one around. Where the fuck had they gone? The men behind me picked up the stretcher and waited in a crouch. Walking along, I looked quickly from one side to another. Where were they?
Suddenly, through a bamboo thicket ahead, I could see a Vietnamese standing, as if he were waiting for us. I stopped and went to one knee. Then, off to my left, the three men whom I had seen earlier bolted for the ravine. We had been hiding from each other. None of us had fired out of separate fear of not knowing exactly what we were up against—two opposing three-man groups, avoiding each other on a spent battlefield.
Except that the man ahead had not moved. I waited for him to turn and join the others, but he stayed his ground. Finally I was afraid of waiting any longer. With sweat dropping in my eyes, I fired toward him and fell forward. Lying on the ground, I wiped my face with my sleeve and waited. There were sounds all around me, but I could not identify any as belonging to the man ahead. I came back up to my knee and stared straight ahead. The man was still there. He was dead, I realized, hung up on some vines. He had been dead before I fired.
We moved by the thicket, past the dead man, then through a burned-out area, through more jungle, and finally onto the edge of the road. At a distance of about two city blocks down the road I saw the lead cavalry elements of the convoy. In front of me were trucks. Some of them were burning.
Men were standing around near the cav vehicles. Wounded and dead littered the shoulders of the road. We climbed up to the road and walked toward the cav vehicles. We passed a truck with the driver hanging out of the half-open door. The next truck was untouched. Off to the side, a patch of woods had been burned by napalm and a cluster of burnt Vietnamese corpses lay in a ditch. A truck was half in and half out of a crater near the first Quarterhorse vehicle, an ACAV. Quarterhorse troopers were in the process of removing some of their dead still draped over the top of it. Many had tanker goggles pulled down to their necks, their bulletproof vests hanging open. Two tanks at the lead were maneuvering in the road. As we approached someone yelled for them to stop because there could be more mines.
I could see a medevac helicopter taking off from the road near the incline past the marsh, and we walked in that direction. Black smoke, with the putrid smell of burning flesh, swirled from some of the burning vehicles.
The lead tank, off to the side of the road, was out of commission. Smoke was coming from an open turret near the front.
A Quarterhorse trooper with a radio was at the very head of the column. Some helicopters were landing in the field where we had first come in. I told the man with the radio that I needed to call for a dust-off. Without waiting for an answer, I reached down and turned to the right frequency, gave my position, and requested a medevac. A medevac chopper came on the air. He was in the area and coming down. I threw smoke and within a matter of minutes the helicopter was on the ground. We put the young boy aboard.
I went back to the radio and called the colonel to tell him that the action was in front of him. The battle back here was over. As I was talking, photographers were coming up the bank from helicopters in the landing zone. They were taking pictures of everything. I moved off to the side as they clustered around the lead Quarterhorse vehicles. When they moved on, I walked over to the lead tank to look for Slippery Clunker Six.
I turned a complete circle as I looked at everyone standing around. There was no one familiar. A tanker walked by.
“Where’s Sergeant Bretschneider?” I asked.
He nodded toward a body bag lying on the bank. A short distance away were five more bags. Some cavalry soldiers brought over another body bag and laid it beside the rest.
Shit, I said under my breath. Don’t think about it. I sat down, suddenly realizing how tired I was. The adrenaline was draining away. I lit a cigarette and looked at my hands. No shake. I looked back at Slippery Clunker Six’s body bag. Don’t agonize, I said again to myself, and I stared at the body bag without reflection. I noticed all of its lumps and its smell and I remembered Slippery Clunker Six eating pâté and reciting poetry. I had heard his voice just within the past hour on the radio. I put all those thoughts together, slowly, and put them in a basket at the back of my mind.
More wounded were coming along the road. I got up and started to walk down the line. The photographers were ahead of me. Up ahead, a soldier was bringing a Vietnamese prisoner in our direction. As they came by one of the burning tanks, a photographer moved around for a good angle. The soldier was Moubry.
I avoided the supply officer as he posed for the photographers, and continued down the line past the burned-out trucks, trying to get even with my battalion in the woods.
By nightfall the 1st of the 28th had swept the wood line along the north side of the road. It pulled back to the road and then down near the area where we had come in on the helicopters. The 1st/16th and the 1st/18th Infantry Battalions had been put in blocking positions near the Cambodian border. They continued to report that Vietnamese mainline forces were straggling toward them all afternoon and night.
The next day we watched minesweeping teams clear the road above the incline. Tank recovery vehicles were still hauling out the tracks damaged or destroyed by the ambush.
“Peppy” visited the troops and congratulated everyone for a damn good operation. A total of 240 Vietnamese had been killed. Our casualties had been light, twenty-four killed in action. We got ’em ten to one. Slippery Clunker Six would have been proud.
I could almost see him smile and say, “There you go.”
By nightfall of the second day the road had been cleared and the convoy headed on toward Minh Thanh.
We were lifted out the next morning. As usual, Dunn and I were to be the last ones out. The battalion had the same helicopters assigned to it that had been used in the heli-assault, but some had mechanical problems and others had suffered battle damage. Fewer than thirty helicopters showed up for the move.
When they left, Dunn and I had an oddball collection of fifty men around the LZ. The road was deserted. Although the 1st/16th, augmented with cav, was going to stay around and help bury the dead Vietnamese, they were on the other side of the forest. Enemy soldiers—some wounded and some looking for wounded—were still around us.
Two helicopters that had just dropped off supplies to the 1st/16th arrived and took out twenty men. We were down to thirty men scattered around the LZ and we pulled them in close. It was quiet. Alert, Dunn and I sat by our radios in the shade near the edge of the field. We strained to see into the forest.
Three partially filled helicopters came in about thirty minutes later and we began moving out the last of the men. Two loaded and left. As the last helicopter was loading, Bob and I were standing by the radio. We indicated that we were the last two by holding up two fingers and pointing to one another. The kicker shook his head and waved the palm of his hand back and forth to say, “No more.”
I picked up the radio and talked with the pilot. “We’re the last two people here,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice shaking from the vibration of the helicopter. “Maxed out. Other helicopters in the area. We’ll get you soon.”
“Shit,” I said to Dunn and turned back to look into the woods. I tried to focus on the shadows inside but, for some reason, the noise of the helicopter behind me made it more difficult. I told Dunn that it was coming down to this. I had been alone in this “enchanted forest,” as the late great Slippery Clunker Six had called it, once before, and here we were again. Dunn didn’t respond. I continued to squint into the woods.
When I gradually turned my head in Dunn’s direction, he wasn’t there. He was high-stepping toward the helicopter in an exaggerated effort to move quietly. The kicker was holding up one finger, as if they could take one more.
“Jesus Christ!” I said. I picked up the PRC-25, sprinted by Dunn, and dived into the helicopter. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t keep up. When he got to the helicopter he climbed aboard, even though the kicker was telling him he couldn’t get on. Sitting on the floor beside me, he was still laughing as we took off.